Google Puts Tony Fadell in Charge of Glass

It was about a year ago when Google announced that it had purchased Nest. Which is a company that has created a couple of connected home products in the Nest Thermostat and their smoke detector. Tony Fadell actually designed the original iPod for Apple, way back in the day. We had wondered what Tony Fadell might do at Google besides working on Nest products. And today we have our answer. Google has placed Tony Fadell in charge of Glass.

Additionally, Google has announced today that Glass is “graduating” from their Google X experimental projects incubator. It’s now becoming it’s own independent division. This division will report to Tony Fadell, while the current Glass head, Ivy Ross, will retain their day-to-day authority. She’ll be reporting to Fadell though. As far as Nest goes, it’ll remain separate and independent. Tony will still be in charge of Nest. This also means that the Google Glass Explorer is done. It’s being shut down after two years, and we have no idea what the next Glass products might look like, or when they will be available. Google has stated that Glass at Work will continue, but the company isn’t giving any timelines on new products for Glass.

Going back to Tony Fadell, it shows his first significant expansion of authority since Google Bought Nest for a little over $3 billion. Many of us had always thought that Google would use Fadell’s hardware expertise. Placing him in charge of Glass is a bit interesting. We’ll definitely be excited to see what the new Glass products look like under Fadell’s leadership. But obviously that’s going to take a bit of time. It’s also going to give him a crack at a new market. Wearables, instead of a connected home.

So Glass isn’t dead, but the Explorer program is. Hopefully we see Glass available publicly for a much cheaper price pretty soon. How many of you are still interested in Glass? Let us know in the comments down below.